Serving a range of needs at Alder

The schedule at Alder Elementary strives to match the wide range of student needs. As a result, students receive a lot of instruction that tries to meet them where they're at academically. Here is a typical schedule for my fifth-graders:- 7:50 a.m. Students gather in their main classroom- 8 a.m. “Walk to Read”: leveled reading instruction forfifth-graders.- 8:45 a.m. English language development:The whole schoolfocuses on English language development and it involves almost theentire staff. At Alder, most of the students speak another language in addition to English.- 9:35 a.m. Break and activity- 10 a.m. Mathematics: This usually focuses on mathematicalconcepts.- 11:10 a.m. Reading groups: These groups are sorted accordingto reading ability.- 11:50 a.m. Lunch and recess- 12:35 Math: This usually focuses on mathematicalcomputations.- 1:10 p.m. Read-aloud: This time often is devoted to ateacher reading a book aloud to the students.- 1:30 p.m. Writing- 2:10 p.m. Cleanup: Many of the students have a job forcleaning up.- 2:15 p.m. Dismissal

On Wednesdays, the students don’t have English language developmentor reading groups, which can allow time for science or social studies.But clearly driving the schedule is a heavy emphasis on reading, math and writing.